Holly Willoughby took the lead in apologising to viewers as she and Phillip Schofield returned to This Morning. The presenting duo were back at the helm of the ITV daytime programme on Wednesday (October 5) for their penultimate show of the week.
And the apology had to come almost instantly as the latest edition of the show opened up with a bit of a twist. As usual, following a break after Lorraine Kelly's self-titled show on ITV, the This Morning theme tune began to play out and the titles followed featuring Holly, Phillip, and teases as to what's to come on the show.
But as it came to an end, some viewers may have noticed a rather large spider run across their screens. "Hell, good morning and welcome to your Wednesday's This Morning," Holly, 41, said as she greeted viewers to the programme. "As you might have noticed from our titles it's all very spooky and scary in her today, especially if you're not a fan of spiders," she went on to explain.
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Phillip, 60, then continued: "We will be putting up spider alerts for anyone who doesn’t like spiders throughout the show." But he admitted: "Although we didn’t warn you that they were going to be running across your screen at the beginning." Holly let out a 'sorry' as her co-star carried on speaking.
"I can imagine you were looking at your telly and thought, 'Oh my God, there’s a spider on the telly!' We didn’t warn you about that," Phillip continued. "Sorry!" Holly chirped again before Phillip triggered the 'spider alert' claxon which saw a note appear on screen and a loud alarm ring out.
Phillip then revealed that the upcoming spider-focused segments were the result of Richard Hammond's appearance on This Morning last week. "If you were watching last week you'll remember that Richard Hammond told us how he was pinned to the back of our green room by a big, bad, Barry we called it. An eight-legged imposter."
They then replayed the clip of the former Top Gear star on the show telling Phillip and Holly how he had spent half an hour 'locked in combat' with a spider, showing them a photo he had took on his phone. "I've called him Barry," he said as the creepy crawly appeared on the screen.
"So he pinned you in the corner of the dressing room?" Phillip asked to which Richard said: "Well we've been moving around each other for the last half an hour." He then joked: "I reckon I could have trained him up, saddled him up and rode him in," to which Holly laughed in horror.
Holly also introduced viewers to 'big, bad Betty' who appeared in her home and saw her enlisting the This Morning team for help. "I found myself with a visitor, let's call her big bad Betty, and had to call in the This Morning team to have her removed." A video then played out, filmed by Holly, of the spider in her dressing room. "That is an actual monster," she could be heard saying.
They were then joined by spider expert James Logan who offered people some advice before Nick and Eva Speakman joined the presenters for the latest phone-in, encouraging viewers to call in for help with their spider phobias.
But it appears This Morning viewers weren't happy. @Leoni3Bax tweeted: "@thismorning are you kidding. SPIDER SPECIAL. absolutely not, turned off for today. No thank you!" @una_whiting echoed: "@thismorning urghhhh HATE spiders … see you tomorrow guys … just can’t watch today."
@pardy_monkey complained: "Whose daft idea was it to have the “spiders” running across the screen? Any phobic person who could have been helped by this section will have turned over! #ThisMorning." @OusbeyChantal shared: " #ThisMorning just nearly smashed my TV when that spider ran across the TV. Aahhhh another one Stop it." @shrimpsy291 added: "Spiders do not bother me but come on stop with spiders running across the screen #thismorning."
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